'Let's play the coin spirit game,' Marlina suggested.

It was late night but Marlina and her cousins were not sleeping. It was the holidays after all. Everyone had gathered at Marlina's place this year. They always had had lots of fun staying together and playing games.

'I don't think it is a good idea. Daddy has told us not to dabble with the spirits as they might harm us,' Siti the youngest of them all told her.

'Don't be such a timid little cat,' the rest of them told her and they went ahead to get the things.

Marlina drew letters and numbers on a piece of cardboard in a proper manner, just like the one she saw in a book. Half an hour later, the makeshift ouija board was completed. By then, everything else was ready and all were eager to start the game.

'Let's play the game now.' Irdawati was impatient.

'Yes, let's play now.' Joined another.

'No, no. Wait until midnight! It's more exciting. Fifteen more minutes, that's all. OK, girls?'

'All right, that's more fun.' Irdawati and the rest of the girls agreed.

'Hey, we'll play outside the house at the veranda. We won't disturb the others sleeping.'

'No, I think we'll just play in here, in the hall. No one can hear us.' Siti was trying to get the group to stay indoors. It was safer to play in the house.

'Just ignore the little coward,' Marlina told the group.

All them crept out slowly into the veranda. They made as little noise as possible so as not to wake their parents up. Everyone looked excited except for Siti who was not happy about it at all. However, she still joined the girls for she did not want to be left out.

'OK, let's start.'

Marlina was the first one to place her finger on the coin. When everyone had their fingers on the coin, Marlina took it upon herself to invite the spirit. Taking out a book she found in the school library, she warned everyone not to remove their hands from the coin once the spirit was invited.

They began chanting slowly, one by one. In between, some thought it was a game and girlish giggles broke out ocassionally. All were new to spiritual invocation, and many wondered what would happen next.

They knew that their invitation was accepted when the coin started to move on its own.

'Where are you from?' Marlina asked the first question.

The coin moved around and stopped at the letter 'N', followed by the rest of the letters which formed the word 'nearby'. One by one, the girls took their turn to ask the coin spirit their questions.

Some, who wanted to find out if the spirit was true, asked the spirit questions like 'when is my birthday'. To their surprise, the spirit answered each question correctly. They even asked other personal question like what would be the name of their future boyfriends and many other personal questions too.

The girls got excited by the game and kept on playing it. Siti who was playing the game had not asked any question yet. She was sceptical, and thought that one of the girls must be moving the coin deliberately.

'How do I know that you are not a fraud? That you are not bluffing us?' Siti asked.

'How can you asked such a question?' Marlina glared at Siti fiercely.

The tree branches behind them started to sway vigorously, startling everyone. Looking around, the girls saw that only the immediate trees were moving, and the trees further away were motionless in the still night. The lights on the veranda had started to flicker.

'Keep your finger on the coin. Do not remove it yet!' Marlina repeated her warning.

All of them sat still, not daring to move. Soon the branches stopped swaying and the lights stopped flickering. Things were beginning to look normal.

They decided then that they had enough for the night. Not wanting to provoke the spirit further, they decided to send the spirit back. However, id did not go.

'The spirit does not want to leave.' One of the girls said, sounding scared.

'Shhh...we'll try again. Spirit, spirit, we want to sleep. Please go now.' Marlina tried again.

'No.' The spirit still refused to leave. The girls got scared.

Suddenly, Siti who had been sitting there quietly started to scream hysterically. No matter how the girls tried to calm her down, Siti just screamed and screamed.

'Keep quiet, Siti. What happened to you?' Marlina shook Siti hard, trying to get her back to her senses.

Her reply came in the form of louder screams. In no time he household had been woken up by the screams and all rushed to the veranda to see what was happening.

By then, Siti was swinging her hands in the air, and trying to hit everyone. Her eyes were rolled back into her head, and her mouth were foaming at the edges. Some strange gibberish were coming out her mouth, that some of the girls recognised to be foul words.

Marlina knew then that the spirit had posessed Siti.

The men tried to control the berserk Siti. However, they had great difficulty restraining her, for she had suddenly developed immense strength. In the end, they had to pin her to the ground.

'Uncle, I think Siti is posessed.'

'How do you know?'

Quickly, Marlina told him about the game they had played earlier, and what Siti had said, prior to the possession. After listening to her tale, one of the uncles ran off to fetch the bomoh while other uncles continued to restrain the struggling and screaming Siti.

They all knew that they could not wait until morning, for it might be too late by then.

The bomoh arrived shortly. Siti had stopped struggling by then, laying there in a daze. They managed to carry Siti to the living room. However, she went into another fit of hysteria the moment she saw the bomoh.

The bomoh said that the spirit wanted a sacrifice as these girls had asked for some things from the spirit. Since Siti was the weakest amongst them, the spirit attacked her.

Siti was screaming and saying weird things. Her voice sounded rough, like a man's.

'Blood, I want your blood.' Siti screamed repeatedly.

Seeing Siti like this, the girls started to cry, and had to be brought out of the room. The bomoh tried to purge the spirit from Siti's body, but his opponent was a powerful one.

Refusing to budge, the spirit laughed condescendingly at the bomoh. The possessed Siti then broke free from her uncles and tried to attack the bomoh. Fortunately, th ebomoh was prepared for the surprise attack, and all of them managed to subdue the raging spirit.

After like a few hours of chanting, the spirit left Siti's body. The dawn was approaching. Siti who was screaming and kicking hysterically the whole while managed to calm down eventually. By then, the whole household was exhausted, having stayed up the whole night.

Siti was still weak, and frightened from the previous night's happenings. While she claimed to not have remembered much of what happened, she ever talked of that night ever again. She also never stepped into Marlina's hose again, after that day.

The next day, the girls were scolded and everyone was sent back home after that. Their holiday plans were cut short as their punishment for defying their parents.